4 ms·

Your being unhappy with a generalization as being 'sexist' is your own problem. The rest of the world just doesn't care that you feel this way. If you want oth

by omonra 11y ago

Your being unhappy with a generalization as being 'sexist' is your own problem. The rest of the world just doesn't care that you feel this way. If you want others to actually listen to your view and not dismiss as meaningless, you have to present data that contradict the premise you are contending - especially when your view flies in the face of anecdotal evidence all of us already possess.

jevgeni 11y ago
What kind of /r/iamverysmart asshatery is this? I don't posses your anecdotal evidence. Especially, when you yourself don't even bother to illustrate them. For bonus points, you could try and prove why one would need evidence in this particular case to prove that sweeping gender generalizations are sexist?
- omonra 11y ago
  I don't give a shit what you think is sexist. It's a meaningless claptrap that tries to substitute truth for political correctness. I care about facts being true or false. For example here is a page that explains the issue: http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women... PS My dad's name is Yevgeni :)
  - jevgeni 11y ago
    It's like talking to an undergrad who just read Witgenstein. You aren't defending the truth, but a simplistic model that can be used as an excuse to be condescending and rude, where you take one assumptions as true in all cases and troll on the internet. It's simple predicate logic and is only accidentaly related to politness (not political correctness). Saying "all heterosexual men are driven by sex" is false when tested empirically. You can leave a million links in the comments, but that statement will still not be true (excluding some trivial cases, like non-existence of heterosexual men). Even statements like "all men have a penis" or "all men are born men" will fail. On the other hand, statements "some men are driven by sex", or even "most men are driven by sex" will not fail. Interestingly, these statements wouldn't be considered sexist by most. Which might suggest that sexism and stupidity don't only go hand in hand, but are strongly related. The article's wording is however absolute: "sexual nirvana for heterosexual men" - no quantifiers that might suggest any kind of relativity - and therefore sexist and stupid. Asking for empirical evidence for my opinion is like asking for empirical evidence of the fact that the set of all integers is infinite. If it helps you feel in control in a discussion, then please, be my guest. But don't spout that self-righteous BS about "truth". P.S. Not surprized about your dad, considering your Pelevin inspired nickname.
    - omonra 11y ago
      My initial angry reply had mostly to do with the perception that you were saying 'Saying that men are more interested in sex than women is sexist and should, therefore, be not mentioned'. That is my pet peeve - current climate of PC whereby certain things that are true should not be mentioned, lest they perpetuate the sad (in the eyes of the speaker) status quo. Now that you have clarified your position, it seems that you're mostly unhappy with absence of the words 'in general' before the generalization. Ie the phrase "“add up to sexual nirvana for most heterosexual men" would pose no problem for you. This is a different type of issue - I don't mind people obsessed with semantics (identity politicers are a different matter). What you are basically saying is that 'Even if there is 1% of men who are less interested in sex than women - that sentence if false'. While being technically true it misses the fact that any statement concerning large sets of anything can have excptions. The question is whether these exceptions are singular or sufficiently numerous to render the generalization false. I think that anything over 90% doesn't require qualifiers. Others may feel differently - for example note that the author already went out of his way to accommodate gays by talking about 'heterosexual men' as opposed to 'men'. So he is effectively tipping his hat to you in order to satisfy the 4% of the population who might react to the sentence with 'I don't care for sex with women at all, what a stupid generalization that is!'. Overall - I don't think you've made a case why the author is wrong to generalize that men are more interested in casual sex than women.
      - jevgeni 11y ago
        Yes, the phrase you provided will pose no problem for me. Yes, I guess this is where the evidence on both sides need to come in: whether it's just semantics or not. And I still think that such flagrant generalizations are harmful. We had the same type of BS with "women are bad drivers", "women are bad at STEM", "women only want to marry" and so on. It is as if some authors want to deliberately pigeonhole groups of people, just to sell more books... The 90% is a stretch I think. This is just a cartoonish view of men. Also one has to keep inherent biases in mind when talking about social issues. Say you have a group of people, about 60% of which like the colour purple. Chances are that most of the other 40% will say they like the colour purple, just to fit in the group. Show them movies where all the heroes like the colour purple, make all the celebrities profess their love the colour purple and 99% of the group will say they adore purple. But that won't be true.

by omonra 11y ago

jevgeni 11y ago

What kind of /r/iamverysmart asshatery is this? I don't posses your anecdotal evidence. Especially, when you yourself don't even bother to illustrate them. For bonus points, you could try and prove why one would need evidence in this particular case to prove that sweeping gender generalizations are sexist?

omonra 11y ago
I don't give a shit what you think is sexist. It's a meaningless claptrap that tries to substitute truth for political correctness. I care about facts being true or false. For example here is a page that explains the issue: http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women... PS My dad's name is Yevgeni :)
- jevgeni 11y ago
  It's like talking to an undergrad who just read Witgenstein. You aren't defending the truth, but a simplistic model that can be used as an excuse to be condescending and rude, where you take one assumptions as true in all cases and troll on the internet. It's simple predicate logic and is only accidentaly related to politness (not political correctness). Saying "all heterosexual men are driven by sex" is false when tested empirically. You can leave a million links in the comments, but that statement will still not be true (excluding some trivial cases, like non-existence of heterosexual men). Even statements like "all men have a penis" or "all men are born men" will fail. On the other hand, statements "some men are driven by sex", or even "most men are driven by sex" will not fail. Interestingly, these statements wouldn't be considered sexist by most. Which might suggest that sexism and stupidity don't only go hand in hand, but are strongly related. The article's wording is however absolute: "sexual nirvana for heterosexual men" - no quantifiers that might suggest any kind of relativity - and therefore sexist and stupid. Asking for empirical evidence for my opinion is like asking for empirical evidence of the fact that the set of all integers is infinite. If it helps you feel in control in a discussion, then please, be my guest. But don't spout that self-righteous BS about "truth". P.S. Not surprized about your dad, considering your Pelevin inspired nickname.
  - omonra 11y ago
    My initial angry reply had mostly to do with the perception that you were saying 'Saying that men are more interested in sex than women is sexist and should, therefore, be not mentioned'. That is my pet peeve - current climate of PC whereby certain things that are true should not be mentioned, lest they perpetuate the sad (in the eyes of the speaker) status quo. Now that you have clarified your position, it seems that you're mostly unhappy with absence of the words 'in general' before the generalization. Ie the phrase "“add up to sexual nirvana for most heterosexual men" would pose no problem for you. This is a different type of issue - I don't mind people obsessed with semantics (identity politicers are a different matter). What you are basically saying is that 'Even if there is 1% of men who are less interested in sex than women - that sentence if false'. While being technically true it misses the fact that any statement concerning large sets of anything can have excptions. The question is whether these exceptions are singular or sufficiently numerous to render the generalization false. I think that anything over 90% doesn't require qualifiers. Others may feel differently - for example note that the author already went out of his way to accommodate gays by talking about 'heterosexual men' as opposed to 'men'. So he is effectively tipping his hat to you in order to satisfy the 4% of the population who might react to the sentence with 'I don't care for sex with women at all, what a stupid generalization that is!'. Overall - I don't think you've made a case why the author is wrong to generalize that men are more interested in casual sex than women.
    - jevgeni 11y ago
      Yes, the phrase you provided will pose no problem for me. Yes, I guess this is where the evidence on both sides need to come in: whether it's just semantics or not. And I still think that such flagrant generalizations are harmful. We had the same type of BS with "women are bad drivers", "women are bad at STEM", "women only want to marry" and so on. It is as if some authors want to deliberately pigeonhole groups of people, just to sell more books... The 90% is a stretch I think. This is just a cartoonish view of men. Also one has to keep inherent biases in mind when talking about social issues. Say you have a group of people, about 60% of which like the colour purple. Chances are that most of the other 40% will say they like the colour purple, just to fit in the group. Show them movies where all the heroes like the colour purple, make all the celebrities profess their love the colour purple and 99% of the group will say they adore purple. But that won't be true.